Ladybird

I visited the grove this morning to see what was happening and the answer was ,nothing', I didn't fire off a single shot. So sad, as this place produced me daily blips for about six weeks. The crops are growing well, perhaps when they start to flower things will improve.

I move on, up the road, to the plantation. The swan plants, a milkweed type plant, was starting to seed. The milkweed attracts the common tiger butterflies, a distant relative of the viceroy and the monarch butterflies. Their caterpillars absorb the poison sap, which makes them unpalatable to their predators. Strangely enough, in this field of milkweed, I have not yet found a single caterpillar. I suspect the field workers have been instructed to remove and destroy, as the caterpillars are voracious eaters.

By now it was already getting on for 09:30 and the sun was high in the clear sky, the temperature already in the high 20's centigrade. The butterflies, my main target, were very active and not really interested in my proposition of a place on blip. However, a green Sabina dragon decided to play nice and I collected about twenty shots, but the very light colored twig that it was perched on caused me exposure problems and I was not satisfied with the results. I am finding that I am far more critical of my work than I ever was before I joined blip.

Last time I visited the plantation, the swan plants had a fairly heavy infestation of aphids. This has triggered an explosion of the ladybird population. Explosion is perhaps an over statement, but there were certainly a lot more than I normally see. I am reminded of the summer of 1976, when the above events happened on a big scale, now that WAS an explosion!

So, despite the fairly respectable dragon shots, I have decided to post my first ladybird blip. This subject is a bit too small for my equipment, but the two hanging blooms helped me out here.

Not properly identified yet. I have looked through some extensive collections of images and not found anything. It may not even be a harlequin.

Update - Cheilomenes Sexmaculata, thanks Liz (Tammiegirl).

Dave